


Clusterhug

by perpetualnovelboyfriend



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Angst, Gen, Light Pining, Multi, Spoilers for Episode 114, and also in my heart, it's blumentrio if you squint, what if
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-08
Updated: 2021-01-08
Packaged: 2021-03-12 09:34:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,152
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28633338
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/perpetualnovelboyfriend/pseuds/perpetualnovelboyfriend
Summary: She wants to laugh in his face. Was he really so naive to come to them for help? Had he shed Bren’s skin completely? She wants to scream at him, ask him what possessed him to put himself in this position at all. Her Bren had been smarter than that. What had happened to him?-A 'what if Caleb called everyone's favorite volstruckers to help him hide the body' fic
Relationships: Astrid & Caleb Widogast, Astrid/Bren Aldric Ermendrud
Comments: 7
Kudos: 54





	Clusterhug

**Author's Note:**

> i simply enjoy writing Astrid having messy feelings.  
> Yeets this into existence before canon messes it up.

“He needs you Astrid!”

It had to have been a slip of the tongue. Caleb Widogast had no need of Astrid Beck. He hardly even knew her. She hardly even knew him.

The little blue messenger had simply been lucky. That was all. So lucky Astrid had not been in the middle of anything compromising. Exceedingly so that she had not been on Ikithon’s estate grounds when the message rang in her ears. Even luckier still that she had chosen Astrid as the receiver and not Eodwulf.

He hadn’t refused outright, even when she told him, but he should have. If Astrid’s had been a lapse in judgement, then Eodwulf should have been the one to ground her.

“He needs our help.” Astrid was simply relaying the message. There was nothing to the softening of her countenance or the quiet in her voice.

“Who?”

“Bren.” She should have said Caleb. She should have said the Mighty Nein or whatever they’d chosen to call themselves. 

“Bren’s gone.” Wulf’s words should have been a dousing of cold water. Their reality check. He’d still made their arrangements within the hour.

—

Astrid steps into the Balenpost fort with Eodwulf following behind. It takes her mere seconds to locate Caleb Widogast - off to one side with his book and his drink. They lock eyes and he shuts the book, waiting for the two to cross the room and join him at his table.

There is a tense silence even after the two are seated. Astrid wonders if he had truly expected them to show. If he had merely been appeasing his new friends by allowing them to make contact with his past life. That Caleb Widogast did not have the same faith in them that their Bren once had. He shouldn’t have. Astrid knew this.

“Thank you.” Caleb breaks the silence finally. He already sounds out of breath. For Astrid, the way his eyes dart over the two of them and around the room brings to mind one of the last times she’d seen Bren. Paranoid. Delusional. “I know this comes at no small risk to yourselves and I… Thank you.”

“Of course.” Astrid flashes a cold, polite smile. She’s not sure what she had been expecting. For him to throw himself at their feet, begging for help? Some sort of admittance that he had been wrong, that he couldn’t make it out here all on his own? That he still needed them… She had known better than to foster expectations.

“Might we be clued in now as to what exactly we’re taking this great risk for?” Eodwulf asks, deceptively demure. They were used to acting on next to no information, maybe too used to it at this point. Their master made simple requests and they followed. How ready they’d been to do the same for Bren.

“Right. Yes.” Caleb pushes back from the table and stands. “If you’d follow me, please.”

“As you were aware,” He only begins speaking once they’ve begun to climb the stairs. “The Nein and I were hired by Lady DeRogna to accompany and protect her. There were some… unforeseen complications.” There is the smallest of pauses as they come to the door. Caleb looks back to see if they’ve kept up just as the realization dawns on Astrid. 

“Oh schatz…” A genuine loss shines through for only a moment. “You’ve murdered the wrong assembly member.” She pouts empathetically. It made sense now, why Caleb Widogast would have need of them. If it stings, Astrid blames it on the loss of her teacher and colleague.

“This was not our doing.” Caleb’s tone remains even, but he hasn’t lost all of Bren’s tells. He holds too still, his jaw too set. The very idea rattles him, as it should.

“Whatever you say.” Eodwulf pushes past the two of them, winking at Caleb on his way.

She wants to laugh in his face. Was he really so naive to come to them for help? Had he shed Bren’s skin completely? She wants to scream at him, ask him what possessed him to put himself in this position at all. Her Bren had been smarter than that. What had happened to him?

Instead, she steps in after Caleb, arms folded as she watches him walk to the center of the room.

“We found her here. I… I don’t know how much information you truly need, so as not to entangle yourselves in our mess, but I assure you this was not our doing.”

Eodwulf chuckles darkly, “And we’re supposed to believe that after our last dinner together? Come on now, Mister Widogast, where’s your proof?”

Caleb huffs, pinches the bridge of his nose as he takes a moment to steady himself. “We are fully aware of how this looks, that is why, against my better judgement, the two of you were called.”

“It was the tiefling’s idea, wasn’t it?” Astrid asks against her own better judgement. She would have been delighted to watch Eodwulf toy with the other man. Spin him up until he admitted to… something.

“Jester, yes.” He sounds just as soft as when she’d relayed the message to Eodwulf. She hates it. The idea that he wants to be needed, but not by them. That they’re being used as proof that Caleb Widogast would do anything for the sake of his new friends, even associating with the likes of demons from a past life.

“And where are your others now?” Eodwulf’s question gives her the chance to rein in the useless sentiment as much as she’s able.

“I told the Nein I would handle it.”

“And they believed you?” Something is clearly still agitating Eodwulf about all this. Astrid can just imagine what. 

“Well, yes. We are friends.”

“They trust you?” Astrid reiterates. Because they needed to know what they were working with, that was all. It wasn’t about the fact that he’d moved on, without them. They were happy for him. They’d already said so.

“With their lives.”

He doesn’t mean it like that, she still has to remind herself. He did not call them because he somehow, somewhere, still feels the same about them.

“Well that’s good for you then, eh? Cause once the assembly catches wind of this…” Eodwulf whistles low at the thought.

Astrid fixes Eodwulf with a look. She doesn’t want to scare Caleb off entirely. Though he was right to be scared. This changed things. More things than he realized, she was sure. 

“You will have to tell us what happened to her, what you saw, who saw you…” He’d have to trust them, just a little. She shouldn’t have enjoyed that fact as much as she did.

“Well,” Caleb begins to pace small circles. “We found her here. It was one of the Tombtakers, revenge I suppose. We, uh, we do still have the body. That will need to be dealt with. As far as anyone else is concerned, we accompanied Lady DeRogna out to the dig site just as she requested.”

Eodwulf shoots Astrid a look at the mention on the Tombtakers, but neither makes any more indication the name stuck out to them. If Caleb thought they were outside of such conflicts entirely, all the better for him.

“What did you do with the body?” Eodwulf asks.

Caleb stops his pacing and pulls a piece of amber from somewhere on his person. “Stored it in here.” He holds it up briefly for the two of them to see, then kneels to set it on the floor. Whatever spell or passphrase he has to use on it, he whispers too quickly and too quietly for Astrid to catch.

“I’m afraid it’s a bit mangled. I… I’m sorry. We needed to ask her a few things in the interim.”

Astrid’s scowl turns sorrowful as the body is finally laid out on the floor. It was a rare occurrence for Astrid to be affected by the sight of a dead body. If anything, she had always believed that when it happened to someone she had known, she should have been damn near desensitized to even the most gruesome of deaths. Knowing the intimate details of someone’s death, just by sight, someone she’d cared for even a little, it felt worse somehow.

“Fuck…” Even Eodwulf can’t keep entirely to himself. “I suppose she’s not charred enough to be your doing.”

It was a dig too far even for Astrid. 

“Eodwulf, hush.” Her voice is low but firm. “This is good. We can work with this. She stays preserved in there, correct?”

If Caleb were affected by Wulf’s commentary, she missed it by merit of finally having something to focus on. He simply nods.

“I suppose you’ll be wanting to keep her like that.”

“Teach me.” Astrid says so simply it was cruel to both of them. It’s only second nature, still, after all this time. For a moment they’re children again.

Teach me, she’d said when they were six and he’d just learned to cast.

Teach me, she’d said when they were thirteen and he was preparing to apply for the academy.

Teach me, she’d said when he’d first gotten the attention of Archmage Ikithon.

Teach me, he’d said when thoughts of romance and relationships had first entered their minds.

“Of course.” He gestures for her to join him, knelt on the floor beside Lady DeRogna’s body.

There is a familiarity in watching arrange components and trace out arcane glyphs. His soft and gentle way of explaining the most abstract things. He’s too modest. She knows even without his say so this is something of his own making, not something he’d simply picked up along the way.

“And then you will have to set a passphrase. For this it is, uh, Una.”

Astrid nods once, just so he knows she’s heard him. She knows what it means, but they don’t have the time to say what’s needed. 

Astrid looks up to Eodwulf, sitting sprawled disinterested as ever in a too small wooden chair. It was all posturing, she knew so. 

“Their story is they completed their work for Lady DeRogna, technically, but she left this supposed dig site early. Something may have seemed off, but not enough to argue with her.” Astrid explains, looking at Eodwulf but it is said for Caleb’s benefit.

“You need more witnesses for on her way home.”

Astrid looks to Caleb. To his credit, he only hesitates a moment.

“We have a guide in… The sailors who brought us here…” Something catches in his mind. “You won’t hurt them though, please.”

“Only a little modified memory, schatz. Maybe a little glamour on my part, so others can place her… Well, you don’t know where she went after here.” Astrid smirks. Usually when someone needed to disappear, their work to make it happen wasn’t quite so involved, but she liked to think they were skilled at it nonetheless. She wants him to believe it too.

She sets to work closing the amber vault, as quick a study as ever. Eodwulf continues to drill Caleb in the background, but she can’t correct him or risk losing concentration. She supposes it’s for the best. Maybe one of them would gain some sort of closure from this.

“This is not the time or place for that discussion, Eodwulf.” Caleb finally manages to put his foot down just as Astrid finishes as Lady DeRogna’s body is once again encased in a single piece of amber. She hates the fact that she’s still marveling at the spell. That now she has to think again about all the things they could have done, together.

Astrid pockets the amber and returns to her feet. “I believe that’s all we need then. You know what you have to say… Your friends… Are your problem, I suppose.”

Caleb’s huff is tinged with amusement at least. “They’re more capable than they let on.”

Astrid hums, doubtful. It’s none of her business though, if that’s who he’s chosen to throw his lot in with. She doesn’t know Caleb Widogast the way they do.

The chair rattles some as Eodwful returns to his feet as well. Time to leave before things really got awkward.

“We’ll have to do this again sometime.” He claps Claeb on the shoulder, none too hard, but Caleb’s laugh still sounds more like a wince.

“I’m sure we will.” Astrid never stops looking at Caleb. She wants to scream at him again. Tell him to come with them, right now. Where they can keep him safe. Take Lady DeRogna’s seat in the Assembly, they have their ways. Help find cause for Ikithon to need a replacement as well. Together.

He doesn’t look away, though she’s certain she’s radiating a level of intensity they all must feel. And maybe he does intuit some of this, because his answer is not the brushing aside she expects.

“I look forward to returning the favor.”


End file.
